Brandon Moss wanted to talk about baseball history in the wake of the A's 12-5 win over Houston on Friday night.

He was hit twice by pitches in the seven-run ninth inning that put the game away.

"You want to talk about my record?" he asked. "There can't be anybody who ever got hit three times in an inning."

His teammates wanted to talk about his serving as a green-and-gold target, too. But not in quite the same terms.

Moss was hit by a pitch to start the ninth inning, then plunked again after Josh Donaldson's two-run homer brought home the sixth and seventh runs of the inning. Add that to the Thursday when the Astros quite pointedly hit Jed Lowrie, and there clearly was some bad blood brewing.

Daric Barton, whose tie-breaking single with the bases loaded wound up clearing the bases with a little help from the shoddy Houston defense, was on the same page.

"It made me mad; it was pretty crappy," he said. "When it happens there's nothing I can do about it, but we're not into having a beanball war. This wasn't the first time it had happened. It obviously wasn't unintentional."

Starting pitcher Jesse Chavez, who had been out of the four-hour, six-minute game for about two hours before the ninth-inning rally, said he came down to the dugout in the ninth to support his teammates after he'd had a rough night. And he wasn't thrilled at the way Moss was treated.

"You never expect that," Chavez said. "In a way, you take it very personally. You can pitch inside, but you can't hit a guy like that, especially after the home run."

It came as no major surprise that with one out in the bottom of the ninth, Oakland reliever Fernando Abad hit Astros catcher Jason Castro, at which point home plate umpire Jordan Baker warned both benches the nonsense had to stop. Astros manager Bo Porter rushed on the field, insisting Abad should be ejected.